122 RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR FREEBOARD. 
sure the crew getting about the deck in heavy weather with, if not comfort, at 
least comparative safety. 
(6) A reserve of displacement, 7. e., reserve or spare buoyancy, must be 
provided as a margin against possible leakage and entry of water into the holds. 
The freeboard, as determined from the above considerations, has been termed 
the geometric freeboard and is the minimum freeboard allowable having regard 
to the vessel’s dimensions, form and type. 
(c) The vessel must have a sufficiency of structural strength to render her 
safe when loaded to the minimum or geometric freeboard. 
As a ship, like any other structure, must be designed for the load to be carried, 
freeboard and strength cannot be disassociated, and the inclusion of a definite 
standard of strength in any freeboard regulations is essential. 
(d) If the vessel has a deficiency of structural strength as compared with that 
of the freeboard standard, the freeboard must be increased in order that the re- 
duced load carried will render her relatively as safe as the standard vessel. 
Although the present Load Line Bill appears to be the first serious attempt to 
provide load line legislation for this country, the desirability of placing some limit 
on loading seems to have been recognized for many years prior to 1917, at which 
time the United States Shipping Board took definite action and issued instructions 
that load lines be marked on all vessels building and to be built for the Emergency 
Fleet Corporation. Marine underwriters, as one would expect, had always en- 
deavored to see that the loading of vessels in which they were particularly interested 
was kept within reasonable limits, and their surveyors had instructions to report 
cases where, in their opinion, vessels were overloaded to an undesirable extent. 
The American Bureau of Shipping’s ‘‘Old Rules’’ emphasized the importance of adher- 
ing to general principles by which the amount of freeboard for safety might be deter- 
mined, and contained a general table of freeboard allowances which varied from 
1% inches per foot of depth of hold at 8 feet to 334 inches per foot at a registered 
depth of 30 feet for full scantling vessels, with one-half of this allowance for hurri- 
cane deck vessels. In the case of vessels of the latter type in which the deck below 
the superstructure, or hurricane deck, was the main strength deck, the minimum 
freeboard proposed required to be submitted to the committee before classification 
was granted. 
Mr. Lewis Nixon, in the paper previously referred to, while criticising certain 
minor features of the British freeboard tables in force at that time, gave expression 
to his own personal opinion regarding a compulsory load line in these words:—“‘It 
must not be assumed that the general opinion of having a definite safe freeboard 
for vessels is wrong, for as it stands this is a very wise law, and, if it is administered 
impartially and without undue interference with trade, it is of the utmost value 
to floating property.”’ In the discussion following the reading of his paper it 
transpired that a bill to regulate freeboards, particularly for lake vessels, had been 
introduced into Congress some years before, but was dropped when it was pointed 
out that most of the channels of the Great Lakes would not allow of vessels being 
